Chapter VII

BRIEF NOTICE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES.

WITH the great JOHN RAY dawns the scientific cultivation of British bees. Before his time, the only entomological work which had been published in England was Dr. Mouffett’s ‘Theatrum Insectorum.’ In this work there is an ample account of the domestic bee, with gleanings from many sources of some of its habits and economy, but there is no notice of any insects, excepting some species of the genus _Bombus_, which may be at all consorted with the social bee by affinities of structure or identity of function.

In Ray’s correspondence with his disciples and friends, we have straggling observations upon the habits of a few wild bees, especially some jotted down by his diligent pupil, the distinguished Francis Willughby. It is in Ray’s posthumous ‘Historia Insectorum,’ published in 1710, at the instance of the Royal Society, that we first find collected together all that had been previously known of ‘British Bees.’ In that work he describes them systematically. He there arranges the bees into _Apis_ and _Bombylius_, which may be regarded almost as genera.

He divides _Apis_ into what may be considered as two sections, _Apis domestica_ forming the first, and the second containing his _Apes silvestres_, or wild bees. Nine of these are described and numbered consecutively, which are followed by eleven descriptions unnumbered, some of the latter having been supplied to him by Francis Willughby, whose initials are attached to these, and amongst which we find the description of the willow bee, subsequently, from this cause, named by Kirby, from its original describer, and now universally known as _Megachile Willughbiella_.

Ray’s second genus is _Bombylius_, identical, as far as it goes, with the modern genus _Bombus_, excepting that it includes an _Anthophora_. He here describes nineteen, all numbered. Ray’s names are phrases, the mode of describing then prevalent in all the natural sciences, until the happy introduction of the binomial system by the great genius of natural history—LINNÆUS. These phrases are almost tantamount to the modern specific character; but Ray unfortunately attaches no size, yet size might have lent some aid to their modern determination.

Mr. Kirby was able to identify and introduce into his synonymy only a few of Ray’s insects, from the defectiveness of the descriptions; the following embrace all that could be verified:—

No. 1 of the _Apes silvestres_ is our _Anthidium mancatum_; No. 3, the male of _Anthophora retusa_, the female of which being No. 4 of his _Bombylii_; No. 4 of the _Apes_ is _Andrena nitida_: these comprise all of those numbered which could be recognized. The first of the unnumbered is the male of _Eucera longicornis_; the fourth is _Melecta punctata_; the sixth is _Colletes fodiens_; the seventh is the male of _Osmia bicornis_; and the ninth the celebrated _Megachile Willughbiella_.

In _Bombylius_ No. 1 is _Bombus lapidarius_; No. 2, _B. Raiellus_, named by Mr. Kirby in honour of its great describer; No. 3 is _B. muscorum_; No. 4 is the female of _Anthophora retusa_, as noticed above; No. 5 is _Bombus terrestris_, as is also No. 6; No. 7 is the male of _B. lapidarius_; No. 8 is _B. pratorum_; No. 9 is _B. sylvarum_; No. 10 is _B. subinterruptus_; No. 11 is _B. hortorum_; No. 13 is _B. Francillonellus_, and No. 17 is _Apathus Barbutellus_. Thus ten of the _Apes silvestres_, and six of the _Bombylii_ are unidentified, and those recognized may be placed correctly, by the aid I give in attaching Mr. Kirby’s synonymy to the list of species added to each genus below.

Nothing of any moment thence intervened, until the Rev. W. Kirby, of Barham, in Suffolk, made a careful and earnest collection of the ‘British Bees,’ with a view to their scientific description and distribution. Stragglers were to be found in many entomological cabinets, and some of their habits had been observed and recorded by patient and attentive naturalists; but these collections were small, very imperfect, and widely dispersed, until Mr. Kirby’s energy and activity nurtured the idea, and carried it into execution, of bringing into one focus the scattered notices and vagrant specimens he had seen about.

The diligence he himself exercised in procuring all the individuals he possibly could, by continued collecting during a succession of years, enabled him, in the course of time, to add considerably to those he was already acquainted with, either in collections, or through dispersed notices. The growing bulk of his store suggested his looking around for guides to their methodical arrangement, as a clue to what might have been observed of their habits. Finding no such assistance, and nothing to meet his wants, for Linnæus’s notices were too few, and Fabricius’s labours too inconsequential, he determined to aid himself by elaborating their distribution upon the basis of the principles established by Fabricius himself, but which this celebrated entomologist had worked out so inconclusively as to make his system an indigested mass heaped together in the greatest disorder.

Mr. Kirby’s patience and diligence, although working only upon the same principle, speedily brought into lucidity and order the obscurity and confusion that had prevailed. By one of those strange coincidences which have been remarkably recurrent in scientific invention and discovery, Latreille, in France, was at the same time arranging all the bees known to him, by a process precisely similar to that adopted by Mr. Kirby. He consequently arrived at exactly the same results, with this difference only, that what Mr. Kirby calls genera are to Latreille subfamilies, and the sections which Mr. Kirby was induced to form in his genera, from their structural differences, and which sections he called families, inconveniently indicating them merely by letters, asterisks, and numbers, were formed by Latreille into genera, and to which the latter either applied or adopted names, or framed new ones, when deficient; these however are essentially genera, with all their discriminative characteristics, for they bring together the very same species in both cases. This clearly exhibits the beauty and certainty of the principle upon which each had worked out his distribution, both being based chiefly upon the structure of the trophi, or the organs of the mouth, but which Fabricius, its projector, had, singularly enough, failed to accomplish successfully.

Both works were published in the same year, 1802 (An X. of Latreille’s book), unknown to each other, but Mr. Kirby’s sprang into life in matured perfection, like the imago of the bee itself, whereas Latreille’s labours were progressively nursed to maturity in successive publications, until they received their final elaboration in 1809, in the fourth volume of his ‘Genera Crustaceorum et Insectorum,’ whose successive stages were, first, the notice appended at the end of his ‘Histoire des Fourmis’ in Paris in 1801, and then in the thirteenth volume of his ‘Histoire Naturelle des Insectes,’ in 1805, a supplement to Sonnini’s edition of Buffon, and then in the ‘Nouveau Dictionnaire d’Histoire Naturelle.’ Even thus the subject was not so amply discussed, although applied more extensively, and made to embrace all the bees, exotic as well as European, at that time known, as it had been done in Mr. Kirby’s model work, which leaves nothing to be desired but the naming of his anonymous subdivisions, and a little more artistical skill in the execution of his plates. The terminology used by him also differs from that subsequently adopted through foreign influences, but which is readily reduced to his standard.

The merits of the work greatly transcend these trivial deficiencies, for it is a “canon” as invaluable to the entomologist as the celebrated canon of Polycletus was, and the Phidian marbles still are to sculptors. Of course observation has greatly reduced the number of his species by their due association with legitimate partners, which, from their dissimilarity, he was compelled to separate, as only successive observation could prove their identity. More extensive collecting has also shown that some of his species are merely varieties of others, which have thus been brought to their authentic type. This also could only be proved by experience, for it is remarkable how very Protean some species are, whilst others are almost rigidly unchangeable. Evidently there does exist a line of demarcation between distinct species, which only requires to be diligently sought to be found, obscure as it may appear to be, but which the insects themselves obey, for however closely species may sometimes approximate, yet I do not believe, as I have before expressed, that they ever permanently coalesce, and that they are always as distinctly separate as are asymptotes.

As Mr. Kirby’s work is in few hands, or perhaps not readily accessible, I will give here a summary outline of it, with the names of the genera with which his families coincide.

In this work he established only two named genera—_Melitta_ and _Apis_.

His genus _Melitta_, which is equivalent to the subsequent subfamily _Andrenidæ_, he divides into two sections, * and * *, the first containing two families, _a_ and _b_, (these we call genera, and they are now named _Colletes_ and _Prosopis_); the second section * * contains three families, _a_, _b_, _c_, (_a_, is _Sphecodes_, _b_, _Halictus_, and _c_ comprises our three genera, _Andrena_, _Cilissa_, and _Dasypoda_.)

His genus _Apis_ he also divides into two sections, * and * *; the first is subdivided into two families, _a_ and _b_ (our genera _Panurgus_ and _Nomada_); and the second is divided into five subsections, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_; _a_ and _b_ constitute families (our genera _Melecta_ and _Epeolus_). The subsection _c_ is divided into two parts, 1 and 2, the first containing the two divisions _α_ and _β_, each comprising a family (our genera _Cœlioxys_ and _Stelis_); and the second is divided into the four families, _α_, _β_, _γ_, _δ_, (_α_ being the modern _Megachile_; _β_, _Anthidium_; _γ_, _Chelostoma_ and _Heriades_ conjunctively, and _δ_ is our _Osmia_). The subsection _d_ has two subdivisions, 1 and 2, the first being a family (our _Eucera_); and the second is divided into the two families _α_ and _β_ (_α_ comprising our _Saropoda_, _Anthophora_, and _Ceratina_), and the family _β_, consisting of the genus _Xylocopa_, then supposed to be indigenous, but whose native occurrence has not been substantiated.

The fifth subsection, _e_, is split into two divisions, 1 and 2, each containing a family (1 is our _Apis_, and 2, our _Bombus_).

In this last of his families Mr. Kirby had already noticed, with the same sagacity with which he had previously conjectured the cuckoo-like habits of some of the solitary bees, the distinctive structure of some of the species, which incapacitated them from providing the sustenance of their own young, and which thus reduced them to the same category; but he left the idea in its supposititious condition, being too modest to use it as a mark of separation, but which Newman, on our side of the Channel, and St. Fargeau on the other side, subsequently, and both nearly about the same time, but with the advantage in favour of Newman, distinguished, and separated generically, respectively by the names of _Apathus_ and _Psithyrus_; the former, having the priority, is adopted, according to the rights of precedence in nomenclature.

The above description of Mr. Kirby’s system will perhaps be difficult to understand, unless I append the naked scheme itself, which is as follows:—

MELITTA.

[Table: Melitta Hierarchy]

Mr. Kirby could scarcely have considered that there were more than two series of equivalents in this scheme, the first being the great division into the two genera; and the second, the final division, where his analysis terminated in his families, which, with some further slight subdivision, as shown above, constitute our present genera. The synthetical combinations which the arrangement presents, as we ascend from his families, result from an almost arbitrary selection of characters and certainly are not equivalents. The whole method is very perplexing; for, to cite an insect for the purpose of making a communication, it would have to be preceded by its whole array of subdivisions. Thus _Megachile Willughbiella_, which is now so compendiously noticed by the binomial system, would have to be quoted as _Apis_ * * _c_, 2, _a_, _Willughbiella_, and so with the rest.

Although I have strongly applauded the ‘Monographia Apum Angliæ,’ as an excellent treatise wherever I have had an opportunity, the praise is to be applied to the correct care with which both the family descriptions and the specific descriptions are elaborated; whilst Mr. Kirby’s timidity in fearing to depart from the course of his masters, Linnæus and Fabricius, by establishing a multitude of genera unrecognized by their authority, although every one of his families is pertinently a well-constituted genus, is much to be deplored. He has thus lost the fame of naming the offspring, of which, although legitimately the parent, he was not the sponsor. But he has won the higher renown, as I have elsewhere remarked, of his work being a canon of entomological perfection.

Notwithstanding that this very elaborate, and, to some extent, artificial method is based upon a plurality of characters, and apparently upon such as most readily presented themselves to substantiate the feasibility of subdivision indicated by habit, it is very remarkable in having brought the series into more satisfactory sequence than that presented by Latreille and his modifiers. _Panurgus_ here holds its permanent post as the connecting link between the _Apidæ_ and _Andrenidæ_, pointed out by nature in its close resemblance to _Dasypoda_. But this genus, however, establishes for itself a stronger affinity to the _Apidæ_, exclusively of that presented by the folding of the tongue in repose, in its presenting immediately the large development of the labial palpi which is peculiarly characteristic of this subfamily.

All the cuckoo-bees then follow in order; these are succeeded by the true _Dasygasters_; after which come Latreille’s _Scopulipedes_; and the series is wound up by _Apis_ and _Bombus_.

Mr. Kirby, I suppose, was induced to associate in the same section _Panurgus_ and _Nomada_, from their resemblance in general habit, which in both conforms to the type predominant in the _Andrenidæ_, although they are thence dislocated by the differences in the important organs of the mouth, which verify in this case the seeming paradox of a part being greater than the whole; for these are certainly of greater relative importance to the economy of the creature than mere general habit, and to which all the peculiarities of structure finally converge, for the purpose of giving it what it thence acquires, its own proper and distinctive place in the series of created beings.

The most extensive work since published upon bees generally, is that treating of the _Hymenoptera_ universally, written by Le Pelletier de St. Fargeau, and comprised in four thick octavo volumes, contained in the ‘Suites à Buffon.’ In this work both the genera and species of our bees occur, of course conjunctively with the rest, but its utility, especially to the beginner, is materially diminished by the peculiar systematic views of the author. The distribution of the Order is framed chiefly upon the economy of the insects, which is not so tangible as structure, and blends very heterogeneous forms,—widely separating, in some cases, structural affinities, and sometimes uniting discordant habits. Wasps and bees we here find intermingled, and to commence study with this work would much perplex the student. It can be used beneficially only when some progress has been made in the pursuit.

The only British entomologists who have treated of the bees since the time of Mr. Kirby, are Stephens, Curtis, Westwood, and Smith,—the first in his elaborate ‘Catalogue of British Insects,’ published in 1829; and the second in his ‘Guide to the Arrangement of British Insects,’ published in 1837. The arrangement of the family of bees in both these works is exceedingly arbitrary and without any obvious reason, either as regards the consecutive order of the genera or species. This originated possibly in their personal rivalry, which led them to make their systems as dissimilar as they could, and as unlike the true order as they could well dispose them. Both arrangements are certainly far beneath criticism.

In the Synopsis of Westwood, at the end of his ‘Guide to the Classification of Insects,’ published in 1840, and in Smith’s ‘Catalogue of the British Bees, contained in the Collections of the British Museum,’ published in 1855, we have Latreille’s distribution, with slight modifications, to which I shall not advert at present, but which I shall discuss in my next chapter, where I shall introduce the arrangement I myself propose for the combination of the genera of British bees.

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